THIS WEEK’S PROMPT FOR REAL AND HONEST FEELINGS FRIDAY POETRY EXTRAVAGANZA NOT FOR LITTLE BABIES

February 27, 2015

Hey cutie pies,

YAY IT’S FEELINGS FRIDAY!!! I’m drinking tea with honey and apples and the sun is happy and I wonder how all of you are.
I hope the day is kind to you and you have warm toes and you are excited about how your life is unfolding. I loved reading your pieces over the last week. You are all so thoughtful and I am so grateful that you are sharing your work with me! I picked excerpts of my three favorite poems below:

“Dear Mustard Yellow Shoes,
…I hope you don’t take this letter the wrong way, because I truly love having you around. Perhaps just be more cautious of getting too close to the edge. Oh, and next time maybe stop by for lunch instead? I simply don’t want to somehow be a part of taking yet another pair of lovely shoes away from this world.

Be well, my friend.

Yours truly,
Lancaster Bridge”
-Cait B.

“Letter from Needle to Vinyl Record;
..Your sophisticated velvet black exterior
gleamed as you slid from your crib.
I sat in awe staring
Wishing I was that breathtaking.”
-Emily P.

“To the Tree,
…Even physics foresees my kinetic life fulfilled.
The sun will shine on my leaves
and I will dance in its warmth and sway with the gentle zephyrs
The earth delivers…”
-The Sapling
THIS WEEK’S PROMPT FOR REAL AND HONEST FEELINGS FRIDAY POETRY EXTRAVAGANZA NOT FOR LITTLE BABIESThis weeks prompt is going to be very simple. It is a list poem.In this poem, you are going to start every sentence with the same beginning. You see lists a lot in popular music- it’s an awesome way to find consistency in verses by creating familiarity for the listener. I find that writing these types of poems are best created out-loud. I do my best writing when I write on my computer and read every line out-loud as I’m creating. I find that my brain already knows what it wants to say. It’s also totally cool to go off on a tangent, once you’ve started a line. Don’t feel restricted that the starting phrase has to repeat every line. It could repeat every stanza, if you choose.Here are some examples:

“I am…I am…I am….”

“Dear ___,Dear___,Dear ___,”

“I can’t remember the last time…I can’t remember the last time…I can’t remember the last time…”

“When I am with you…When I am with you…When I am with you…”

I chose two poems this week, both from one of my favorite writers and spoken-word poets, Rachel McKibbens.
In both of these pieces, Rachel uses the tool of repetition, and then twists it. It’s like she finds a new meaning with every line.

“Its okay to hang upside-down like a bat,
to swim into the deep end of silence,
to swallow every key so you can’t get out.
It’s okay to hear the ocean calling your fevered name
to say your sorrow is an opera of snakes,
to flirt with sharp and heartless things.
It’s okay to write, I deserve everything,
to bow down to this rotten thing
that understands you, to adore the red
and ugly queen of it, to admire
her calm and steady rowing.
It’s okay to lock yourself in the medicine cabinet,
to drink all the wine, to do what it takes to stay
without staying. Its okay to hate God today
to change his name to yours, to want to ruin all that ruined you.
It’s okay to feel like only a photograph of yourself,
to need a stranger to pull your hair and pin you down,
it’s okay to want your mother as you lie alone in bed.
It’s okay to brick to fuck to flame to church to crush to knife
to rock to rock to rock to rock to rock and rock.
It’s okay to wave good-bye to yourself in the mirror.
To write, I don’t want anything.
It’s okay to despise what you have inherited,
to feel dead in a city of pulses. It’s okay
to be the whale that never comes up for air,
to love best the taste of your own blood.
— Rachel McKibbens, from “Letter From My Heart to My Brain”

“And you will hear yourself say:
Last Love, I wish to die so I may come back to you
new and never tasted by any other mouth but yours.
And I want to be the hands that pull your children
out of you and tuck them deep inside myself until they are
ready to be the children of such a royal and staggering love.
Or you will say:
Last Love, I am old, and have spent myself on the courageless,
have wasted too many clocks on less-deserving men,
so I hurl myself at the throne of you and lie humbly at your feet.
Last Love, let me never roll out of this heavy dream of you,
let the day I was born mean my life will end
where you end. Let the man behind the church
do what he did if it brings me to you. Let the girls
in the locker room corner me again if it brings me to you.
Let this wild depression throw me beneath its hooves
if it brings me to you. Let me pronounce my hoarded joy
if it brings me to you. Let my father break me again
and again if it brings me to you.
Last love, I have let other men borrow your children. Forgive me.
Last love, I once vowed my heart to another. Forgive me.
Last Love, I have let my blind and anxious hands wander into a room
and come out empty. Forgive me.
Last Love, I have cursed the women you loved before me. Forgive me.
Last Love, I envy your mother’s body where you resided first. Forgive me.
Last Love, I am all that is left. Forgive me.
Last Love, I did not see you coming. Forgive me.
Last Love, every day without you was a life I crawled out of. Amen.
Last Love, you are my Last Love. Amen.
Last Love, I am all that is left. Amen.
I am all that is left.
Amen.”

-Untitled by Rachel McKibbens

So there’s this week’s prompt, boo-boos. Create a list, using the same repeating phrase. Make it personal. Twist it. Find new meaning.
As always, you can keep it for your own personal work, or you can share it with me! Send it to marylambertsing@gmail.com.